Avoiding the Dangers of Groupthink

Have you ever found yourself sitting in a project planning meeting where everyone around the table is discussing completion dates they know can't be met, yet no one ever says so? Or have you ever spent hours trying to work out some technical aspect of a design, even though you know another aspect of the design has a serious flaw that isn't being addressed? Unfortunately, these surreal experiences are familiar to most engineers, and they take place more often than many of us would like to admit.

How does this happen? How do engineers, who pride ourselves on our rationality and individualism, get caught up in a collective denial of reality? Most importantly, how do we live up to our professional responsibility to speak out?

Groupthink is a concept that was introduced by William H. Whyte in a 1952 Fortune magazine article and later developed by the psychologist Irving Janis in the 1970s and 1980s. It refers to the tendency to suspend independent critical thinking in favor of group consensus. The result is poor decision making.

The loss of the space shuttle Challenger and the lives of its crew, and the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its crew 17 years later, are often given as examples of engineering groupthink. More recently, the stubborn insistence by the truck and engine manufacturer Navistar that its diesel emission reduction strategy would eventually work, despite evidence to the contrary, cost that company hundreds of millions of dollars and cost more than 700 people their jobs.

In all of these examples, it's probably fair to say the denial of reality was more on the part of managers than engineers. But why weren't engineers successful in winning their managers over to the side of reality?

The insidious thing about groupthink is that it builds on some of the best aspects of our character, including our ability to work together toward common goals and our unwillingness to give up in the face of a challenge. Despite the stereotype of engineers as solitary misanthropes, teamwork is central to the engineering profession. Engineers often have deep loyalty to their teammates. This is a good thing, but loyalty should never mean self-censorship of criticism. Engineers also often have a tendency to believe they can solve any problem with hard work and ingenuity. This can sometimes lead to ever-increasing expenditures of effort toward a difficult task without questioning the value of the task itself.

The first rule in Dale Carnegie's well-known book How to Win Friends and Influence People is "Don't criticize, condemn, or complain." It's certainly true that negativity rarely leads to popularity, but it can sometimes play an important role in making good decisions.

During my senior design project in engineering school, one of my classmates distinguished herself by criticizing nearly every group decision and constantly complaining about the hopeless state of our project. Needless to say, the rest of the group found this behavior annoying. As the semester progressed, however, I realized that it was important to take her criticisms seriously. If they were wrong, explaining why they were wrong increased our own understanding. If they were right, they helped keep us from going in the wrong direction.

Of course, I'm not suggesting it's good to be a chronic complainer, but such people shouldn't always be written off. Engineers should not let the fear of being perceived as negative, stepping out of line, standing alone, or even being wrong override their professional judgment. As Richard Feynman pointed out in his appendix to the Challenger report, "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

Keep that in mind the next time a project leader asks you for a positive piece of information to help him sell a project to his managers.

After a bit more thought I have concluded that the companies run by those who see concensus as the way to do everything deserve every bit of grief that they get. The reality is that not all ideas are of equal value, and not all engineers are equal in their skill sets. So, basing a decision making process on the theory that nobody has a better idea is a fairly certain way to assure that the best choices are never made. Those who choose to run the show based on that concept should be left to fail, so that there will be more room for companies that have a better understanding of reality.

And from my experience one of the worst things to do would be to put on a schedule the amount of time it would take to make the decision or sign the paper work. People at the top of the food chain did not want to know that they were the cause of delays.

I love this idea. To go a step further I used to request that sales/marketing put together projections regarding what the end result would produce. Unfortunately, no one ever held anyone accountable for those projections. But the thought was a good idea. I figured if it was such a big deal to have that solution by a certain time. It would have to result in additional sales that would have to be met.

Being in that same situation I saw good engineer after good engineer follow each other right out the door. It's too bad that this has become the way that some people think they should manage. Hopefully, those reading this magazine will think and do differently when they are give n the opportunity.

Tim--I also worked for a company that put forth stretch goals and realistic goals and it was always hard to distinguish. Sometimes marketing (of all people) had a better view of what the desired result was. I always made it a point to request to accompany the marketing/sales folks several times a year when they made customer visits or presentations. It kept everybody grounded and gave engineering some leads on what the enduser really wanted.

Some companies have stretch goals that are the cornerstone of their business model. I worked at a company that was similar to what you described. My company would give you a few goals at the beginning of the year. Some of the goals were stretch goals that you were not expected to meet and some were not. The problem was that you did not know which goals were stretch goals, so you had to guess which ones were worth heavy pursuing.

I retired from a company in which programs were scheduled from right to left. In other words, management knew when the product had to be launched--then, they went to the "boys" in engineering and had them fill in the milestones dates to "make it happen". Oh by the way, we always had a stretch target; a completion date sooner than the actual launch date. One huge problem, there were days in which we had up to six or even seven meetings to discuss the program. Management would demand the engineers attend so they could understand why we were behind. An additional problem--no decisions were made by individuals responsible for the program. Every decision had to be a "group effort". Because of personnel schedules, some decisions were delayed for days. Corporate life can be hazardous to your health.

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